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A Theology of Voice:VOCAL and the Catholic Clergy Abuse Survivor Movement
Victims of Clergy Abuse Linkup (VOCAL/Linkup) was among the first and most prominent advocacy organizations for American survivors of childhood clergy sexual abuse. Linkup survivors recognized the spiritual dimensions of their abuse, which they called "soul murder," and they sought healing and justice through a systemic and distinctively Catholic discourse about the divine powers of "voice." This article names that discourse "a theology of voice" and analyzes VOCAL's history through its leaders' speeches and writings, including those preserved in its newsletter, The Missing Link. For survivors in VOCAL, "voice" was the foundation for transforming oneself from "victim" to "survivor," the first step toward justice and the moral lens through which ecclesiastical accountability could be judged. Although VOCAL/Linkup no longer exists, its theology of voice predominates American discourse about clergy sexual abuse. Linkup's theology of voice also provides a glimpse at an alternate configuration of the ongoing clergy abuse crisis, one in which victims and bishops might collaborate on spiritual repair and institutional reform.
clergy sexual abuse, survivors, Chicago, Illinois, Miller, Jeanne M., Steffel, Marilyn C., Economus, Thomas H., Victims of Clergy Abuse Linkup, Linkup, VOCAL
We turned to them as children. Then as adults, we turned to them in vulnerability. If this weekend did nothing else, it has allowed us to [End Page 81] release that child's voice within us. That voice that has been screaming. And turn it into a prophetic voice that can move the Church forward.
—Jeanne Miller, 19921
In 1992, Jeanne Miller and Marilyn Steffel convened a national healing conference themed "Breaking the Silence," where they launched the nonprofit VOCAL, an acronym for Victims of Clergy Abuse Linkup (later known simply as Linkup).2 During the 1990s, VOCAL/Linkup became the largest survivor advocacy community in the United States. VOCAL survivors preached that "voice" was the foundation for a spiritual transformation from victim to survivor, the first step toward justice, and the moral lens through which ecclesiastical accountability could be judged.3 This "theology of voice" (my term) was central to Linkup's rapid growth. By 1995, 15,000 Linkup members who had organized into 43 state chapters were hosting monthly support meetings in 172 American cities.4 Yet Linkup is largely forgotten, in part because its director's untimely death precipitated an organizational collapse in 2002, just as The Boston Globe's "Spotlight" investigation brought international attention to survivor groups. Although VOCAL no longer exists, its legacy is the "theology of voice," a distinctively Catholic framework so pervasive that it is now taken for granted in the broader American discourse about clergy sexual abuse.
This article makes three interventions to our understanding of Catholic sexual abuse in the United States. First, "a theology of voice" explains how and why early victims understood survivorship as a spiritual transformation. I use the term "theology" because survivors developed a comprehensive, consistent, and distinctively Catholic framework through which they applied [End Page 82] "voice" to interpret scripture, ethics, Church documents, ecclesiology, sacred relationships, and spiritual growth. The moral and relational principles of survivors' theology of voice compelled justice through actions, not just for victims, but also by guiding bishops, priests, nuns, and non-abused laypersons' responses to clergy sexual abuse.
Within this theology of voice, survivors believed that individual speech was healing, communal testimonies held prophetic power, and ecclesiastical truth-telling could be salvific. In their support groups and at healing conferences, they uplifted one another's voices to rebuild their individual spiritualities, reclaim liturgical spaces and rituals, and confront the anger and distrust they felt toward God. Survivors also understood voice as vital for sparking institutional reforms to prevent sexual abuse and its coverup. By voicing their stories of suffering and "linking up" into spiritual communities, VOCAL members believed they could repair harm from clergy abuse—both their individual trauma and the moral injuries that the crisis inflicted on the entire "People of God."5
Through this theology of voice, survivors created a moral community in which the absence of voice represented evil. VOCAL leaders called out priestly silence as sinful, secret archives as shameful, and episcopal deafness as complicit. In these respects, Linkup's theology of voice prefigured our contemporary scholarly understanding of clerical silence as harmful. For example, a decade after the survivors' "Breaking the Silence" conference, Father Donald Cozzens wrote persuasively on the history and deleterious effects of priestly silences.6 Likewise, Mark Jordan was inspired by survivors to analyze secret archives, the culture of silence that enveloped priestly sexuality, and the systemic need for truth-telling in Catholic institutions.7 Early victims' theology of voice created the discursive framework within which speech and silence have become key criteria for academic analyses of clergy sexual abuse. By framing clerical silences as evil, Linkup survivors sought to redefine the power dynamics that enabled and long concealed their traumas.
Secondly, this article argues that scholars should uplift the ways that survivors have interpreted their own abuse.8 The methodology employed here [End Page 83] is to "listen" to the speeches and writings of VOCAL members, especially recordings of Linkup's annual healing conferences and entries in the organization's triannual newsletter, The Missing Link.9 This article aims to recenter survivors' voices, even when it requires muting or muffling my own analysis. Since survivors should not be treated merely as "data," this work recognizes that survivors are also engaged in clergy sexual abuse's historicization and theorization. Scholarly listening aligns with the moral imperatives of survivors' theology of voice, but it also offers valuable historical insights and attempts a more ethical relationship to the victims who shared their intimate suffering.10 Other ethnographers of vulnerable populations have called for similar moves, including Laura McTighe's vision of "an otherwise anthropology" grounded in "reparative thinking and doing."11 Reparative work is particularly valuable when studying victims of communal trauma. As anthropologists Veena Das and Arthur Kleinman have demonstrated, "the act of witnessing" is foundational for reconstructing the social fabric of victimized communities.12 An unspeakable crime in many societies, individual stories of rape often contain "absences and silences" that are too intimately painful for any sole survivor to speak alone.13 When they are spoken communally, survivors' testimonies can transform intimate trauma into public knowledge, generating a new social memory that acknowledges and accounts for their collective victimization. [End Page 84]
By listening attentively to survivors' voices we learn that American survivors were bound together by not one but two shared experiences of clergy abuse: first their "soul murder" (as children) and then their "revictimization" (as adults). "Soul murder" is a psychoanalytic concept that American psychiatrist Leonard Shengold popularized as a way to recognize the lifelong devastation abuse wrought.14 Mary-Gail Frawley O'Dea has argued that soul murder aptly describes clergy abuse, not just because of its spiritual dimensions but also because Catholic children understood both their abuser and God as "Father."15 Survivors who encountered the term in therapy reinterpreted "soul murder" through a distinctively Catholic framework. Through conversations with Linkup survivors, it is clear they understood soul murder as naming their spirituality and faith's annihilation, including the contamination of sacred rituals (which were sometimes implicated in their sexual abuse); inability to trust priests; the loss of a sense of belonging to the Church; the impassible void that prevented their prayer to the angels and saints; and especially the severing of their relationship with God.16 In addition to receiving treatments common to non-religious childhood sexual abuse victims, many Catholic survivors have focused on repairing their faith. Because they understood that it was not just their bodies, but also their spirituality that was abused, VOCAL survivors sought healing and justice through the religious framework of a theology of voice. [End Page 85]
In The Missing Link, survivors also frequently invoked the concept of "revictimization" to name their ubiquitous experiences of being denied, silenced, and intimidated when they as adults returned to the Church seeking justice and pastoral care. Linkup survivors overwhelmingly reported that dioceses responded to their reports of soul murder through legal frameworks of criminal and financial liability. By appointing law firms as the first point of contact for addressing survivors' allegations, bishops both failed to provide pastoral care and caused new spiritual harm. Linkup was founded in response to this new harm and its concomitant emotions of moral disillusionment and spiritual chaos, which survivors called revictimization. As their theology of voice makes clear, Linkup believed that American bishops missed an opportunity to address the crisis inside churches instead of courtrooms. By not listening more compassionately to their stories of suffering, Linkup alleged, the Church failed to hear survivors' genuine desire for spiritual repair. Linkup's vision was to create a spiritual community that could redress the revictimization of priestly silence and provide the pastoral care victims felt the Church was not providing. Through a theology of voice, Linkup emphasized survivors' agency in their own healing and lay communities' power to promote justice within the Church.
Thirdly, this article demonstrates that survivors' theology of voice grew from and expanded its engagement with Catholic feminists, liberation theologians, and survivors of incest. Feminism was integral to the emergence of the clergy sexual abuse survivor movement, with the first two American Catholic survivor groups founded by Catholic feminists: VOCAL by Jeanne Miller and Marilyn Steffel, and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) by Catholic Worker and Linkup member Barbara Blaine. In creating support groups where victims could vocalize their spiritual pain and suffering, these women drew heavily on their own understandings of Catholic feminism, liberation theology, and social justice. At the same time, they followed in the footsteps of secular feminists who had already raised social consciousness about childhood rape and sexual assault. Rape victims' visibility in the 1970s and, especially, incest survivors' grassroots activism during the 1980s, made it possible during the 1990s for victims of priestly sexual abuse to begin sharing their experiences. Survivors' understanding of "voice" began at this intersection—when the Catholic feminism of Miller and Steffel meshed with Americans' newfound concern for rape and incest victims.
Linkup's theology of voice is the missing piece for feminist historians puzzling over how, to paraphrase Nancy Whittier, a feminist framework came to dominate the discourse about abuse in one of the world's most patriarchal institutions, the Roman Catholic Church.17 The feminist inheritance [End Page 86] of the early survivor movement reveals that Catholic discourse on clergy sexual abuse evolved alongside secular movements, not merely from the long shadow of Vatican II.18 VOCAL's feminist roots underscore how American conversations about the abuse crisis were skewed in their emphasis on male agency. Both scholars and news media focused on boys' victimization, priests' crimes, and bishops' malfeasance. This article reminds us that women founded the American Catholic survivor movement and that their theology of voice envisioned a less magisterial way of being Catholic, where survivors nurtured each other spirituality by listening to one another's experiences of suffering.
The History of VOCAL's Theology of Voice
In the 1970s, isolated clergy sexual abuse victims came forward to ask the Church for help. Efforts to organize victims into public networks and support groups began a decade later, in the mid-1980s, when a suburban mother's struggle to seek justice left the entire family revictimized. Following her son's abuse in 1982, Jeanne M. Miller (1948–) became the unlikely architect for the clergy sexual abuse survivor movement. While grieving her son's assault, Miller felt further abused by the Archdiocese of Chicago's response to her family's pleas for help. The Miller family had made three requests of the archdiocese: help their son heal, apologize to other boys abused in their parish, and protect children from the offending priest in the future. Instead, archdiocesan bishops tried to silence the Miller family through denial, obfuscation, intimidation, nondisclosure agreements, and threat of excommunication.19 The priest was transferred to other parishes and abused additional children. The archdiocese's response threw Miller into moral outrage and spiritual despair. To make sense of the spiritual chaos, she turned to Catholic feminists, liberation theology, and secular support groups for incest victims. Through these three discursive networks, she came to articulate a theology of voice as the basis for Catholic survivors' understanding of moral justice and spiritual repair.
Miller's feminism began with the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVMs), who educated her from grade school through college. She was so inspired by their campaigns for racial justice and a preferential option for the [End Page 87] poor that she left college to join their community in Dubuque, Iowa.20 After she left the convent and returned to Chicago to start a family, Miller dedicated herself to peace activism and youth ministry, where she befriended the parish's director of religious education, Marilyn C. Steffel (1948–), who was likewise immersed in Catholic feminism. Steffel celebrated women's liturgies and was an officer in several Catholic feminist groups, including Chicago Catholic Women (CCW) and the Women's Ordination Conference (WOC).21 When Miller first disclosed her son's abuse, the parish shunned her, but Steffel stood by the family, and the CCW women became Miller's confidants as she tried to make sense of the abuse and revictimization. Miller no longer felt welcomed at her parish, but she could not turn away from her faith.
Betwixt and between, she began studying theology at Mundelein College in Chicago where her Catholic feminist network deepened and she could reflect on how liberation theology might help sexual abuse survivors repair their souls.22 "It was wonderful therapy," recounted Miller.23 In her M.A. thesis, "Pedophilia in the Priesthood: A Church in Crisis," she drew primarily on liberationists Gustavo Gutierrez and Paulo Freire, citing them alongside Popes Paul VI and John Paul II.24 Miller came to believe that, like the poor, clergy abuse survivors were particularly well-situated "to recognize justice and injustice by virtue of having been the victims of oppression."25 Throughout her thesis, Miller developed voice as the backbone for "the critical end of healing":26 [End Page 88]
The Church must listen to the stories of victims, their families, and their communities. The Church should never suppress, deny, or ignore reports of child sexual abuse, but deal with them directly and honestly. … Once our Pastoral Fathers hear victims of sexual abuse, they must be compelled to take action against such injustice, then seriously consider the social structure in which the abuse is embedded, and work urgently to heal the social and individual wounds. … The Church must speak for those who are afraid or cannot speak for themselves and respond with the justice and compassion of the Gospel. … It is the entire community of the People of God who are massively injured [by clergy abuse], because the conspiracy of silence is a social sin.27
Following Gutierrez, Miller called for "a social conversion, a metanoia, a radical transformation."28 "Suffering voices must be raised," she proclaimed, "and stories told aloud" to unburden survivors of their sexual and spiritual traumas.29
Miller's theology of voice was also clearly influenced by the advocacy of incest victims, who garnered the media spotlight during the early 1980s. Incest survivors amplified the feminist teaching that women gained agency through speech-acts.30 Through their activism, memoirs, and television appearances, incest survivors defined voice as the first step toward healing.31 Incest survivors extolled the power of voice beyond speech, particularly its ability to bridge traumatic gaps and reconnect victims with their childhood selves. "The key is connection of the survivor with her history," sociologist Carol Barringer observed, "of the present with the past, of the lost numbedout feelings with the words that release them."32
Incest survivors' emphases on voice and network building resonated strongly with clergy sexual abuse survivors, helping inspire Miller to go public with how the Church handled her son's abuse. She published the memoir, Assault on Innocence, in 1987.33 It attracted such media attention that Miller toured widely on radio and television talk shows, appearing [End Page 89] alongside incest survivors on The Oprah Winfrey Show, 60 Minutes, and Larry King Live.34 Her personal telephone number was publicized during these shows as a hotline for clergy abuse survivors, and she was soon inundated with calls from victims across the country. Empowered by the callers' courage, Miller and Steffel founded VOCAL in 1991 and organized a national healing conference themed around "Breaking the Silence." More than 400 victims traveled from across the country to participate in the Chicago conference, which featured twenty-seven seminars and healing workshops facilitated by survivors, priests, psychologists, lawyers, and authors. Miller hoped the weekend would be a launchpad for survivors to "link up" into regional networks.
From 1992 to 2002, Linkup was one of the world's largest and most prominent communities of clergy sexual abuse survivors. In 1994, Miller handed the reins to Father Thomas H. "Tom" Economus (1956–2002), a charismatic priest who ran Linkup until his death. Economus was a twiceover survivor of clergy sexual abuse—first as a child at the Sky Ranch School for Boys and then as a young seminarian.35 Economus left the seminary but was later ordained in the Independent Holy Catholic Church, and he frequently wore the clerical collar at Linkup events. Although he became the organization's public face, Linkup was run largely by volunteers in Chicago, especially Rick Springer, Marilyn Steffel, Jack and Bobbie Sitterding, and Sheila McDonald.36
Linkup's national influence far outsized its Chicago office, and in its heyday the group served as an umbrella for members starting their own survivor organizations. Early Linkup member Frank Fitzpatrick founded Survivor's Connections, having already made headlines for using the classifieds to find dozens of his abuser's other victims.37 Father Gary Hayes, a survivor and later Linkup president, founded Jordan's Crossing and was among the first Roman Catholic priests to publicize his own childhood abuse by clergy. Most famously, Linkup member Barbara Blaine founded the Survivor's Net-work [End Page 90]
Three Linkup members, ca. 1995, received "survivor of the year" recognitions at the National Healing Conference: Frank Fitzpatrick (left, founder of Survivor Connections), Barbara Blaine (center, founder of The Survivor's Network of those Abused by Priests or SNAP), and Father Tom Economus (right, president of Linkup). Note the survivor quilts in the background of the conference's main stage (Courtesy of Rick Springer/"The Linkup: Slideshow," 11th National Healing Conference, Louisville, Kentucky, February 21–23, 2003).
of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), which later surpassed Linkup as the most prominent survivor advocacy organization in the Americas.
Even as survivors drew on feminist strategies and secular therapeutic concepts, the emerging discourse did far more than parrot American self-care-talk; early survivors developed a distinctively Catholic theology that retained priests, prayer, and sacraments, and that aimed to repair survivors' souls through restoring, on new terms, their relationships with God and the Church.
Analyzing the Survivor's Voice
VOCAL's members believed that voice held the ontological power to transform a "victim" into a "survivor." Reflecting on key Linkup speeches and articles, three main themes emerge from their multivalent understandings of voice: the sacred power of an individual survivor's story, the sinfulness [End Page 91] of priestly silence, and the prophetic potential of linking up survivors' voices into a communal chorus. This section discusses the main actions expected of the individual survivor's voice: speaking aloud to friends or family, reckoning with the relationships severed by soul murder, listening to other survivors, bearing witness through the news media, and truth-telling to parishioners and diocesan officials.
Speaking aloud was the first step in "the journey toward wholeness." Voicing aloud the brutal reality of one's abuse, Linkup preached, was the first and most basic act through which survivors could rid themselves of shame, admit that it was not their fault, and begin to reconcile with the trauma of soul murder. "In the beginning there were victims and the victims spoke up and everything else followed," Father Economus wrote.38 Linkup taught that the first time a victim spoke they needed to say the words aloud, preferably in a small-group setting and with the close support of a friend, family member, or fellow victim.39
Reckoning, through stories and writing, enabled survivors to acknowledge and potentially retrieve relationships severed by their abuse—with childhood friends, with family members, and especially with God. "Now more than ever we need to remember our faith, because it is in our spirituality that most of us were most profoundly wounded," wrote Missing Link's editor, Father Jay Nelson.40 Linkup leaders taught that this spiritual repair process was inherently communal. Through sharing memories with one another, Economus told healing conference attendees, "You provide the strength, wisdom, courage, and confidence necessary to begin healing. … We empower each other, we take care of each other, and together we will take back what was taken from us—our lives."41
Listening to other survivors was an act of communion, through which survivors "linked" together their individual experiences of suffering. "When we listened to one another," Dee Miller reflected, "it was even more healing" than telling one's own story, and that intimate sharing "created an instant sense of community."42 While serving as Linkup's president, Dennis Gaboury likewise emphasized that communal sharing had empowered him "to take back the pain … of the raped ten-year-old inside of me."43 "I don't have all [End Page 92] the answers," Gaboury continued, "which is why I need your help. Spiritual questions arise in the context of community. We all learn from each other."44
Linkup survivors understood bearing witness as a public sacrifice, in which victims offered their most intimate experiences of pain hoping to ensure that the Church protected children in the future. In an early editorial, Economus touted the media's role in preventing future abuse: "All survivors are concerned that perpetrators never have an opportunity to hurt another [child], and many come to recognize that 'going public' may be the most effective, if not the only way, to accomplish this."45 Likewise, Nelson understood survivors' public voices as essential for safeguarding youth in the future. In the late 1990s, at a time when many Linkup survivors were feeling "exhausted and burned out," Nelson warned, "The need for watchdogs, for witnesses to testify to the grim realities of clergy sexual abuse, won't go away."46 Linkup recognized that survivors also needed to bear witness to open non-victims' hearts and minds. By "telling our individual stories to audiences," Gaboury proclaimed, "justice is born."47
Linkup survivors understood truth-telling as a gift they could offer to those clergy and laity willing to listen. Whereas survivors bore witness in massmedia and in state legislatures, truth-telling was an internal affair, an opportunity for conversations that situated clergy sex abuse in clericalism and the Church's gendered theology of power. This required survivors to visit parishes and speak to their local bishops. Addressing concerns that truthtelling would drive faithful out of the pews, Economus preached, "It is not about retribution. It is about breaking the cycle of abuse. It is about knowledge, acceptance, and treatment. It is about telling the secrets that we have known for too many years."48 Linkup's leaders believed that this truth-telling helped counter the sin of priestly silence, thus helping the entire People of God. Each time VOCAL survivors spoke at a parish, they articulated childhood abuse as just one example of the hierarchy betraying Catholics' trust in the sanctity of the priesthood.
The Sins of Silence
Survivors' recognition of silence as sinful undergirded their theology of voice. From their childhood abuse, they learned firsthand how silences and secrets enabled and deepened their trauma. As adults, they came to understand [End Page 93] priestly deafness as revictimization and Church secrets as pastoral harm. These critiques of silence elucidate why victims placed such hope in the redemptive power of voice. Victims' shared experiences of revictimization brought back painful memories of having been silenced and intimidated as children, and it was this more recent wound–even more than their original abuse–which now bound them together as adults. Diocesan attempts to deny survivors' experiences of childhood abuse caused new spiritual and institutional harm.49
The pain of revictimization reverberated throughout Linkup's fifteenyear history. At its 1992 healing conference, Miller claimed, "I have spoken to more than 3,000 other victims, and I cannot cite one family, not one person, who started out by going to law enforcement. Everyone started out by going to the Church."50 In 1995, Economus reflected on the intense pain of his own revictimization:
By going to the Church, I reacted in the manner I was taught: if you have a problem and you have exhausted all avenues, turn to the Church, turn to God, help is available. Then I spoke up about my abuse. My good clergy friends retreated, the Church shut me out, friends for many years took the side of the diocese and wanted to silence me. … I could not figure out how and why the Church that I loved turned a deaf ear. I was devastated. In some ways, this re-victimization was more painful than the actual molestation.51
Following the 2002 Boston reports, the acting Linkup president, Father Gary Hayes, penned an open letter to American bishops beseeching them to "STOP blaming the victims, intimidating and silencing them, and paying hush money."52 Instead, Hayes implored, "START listening to victims, telling the truth, and acknowledging the pain of clergy abuse."53 Pastoral listening was so crucial—and so lacking, Hayes felt—that he even suggested bishops invite "panels of survivors to tell their stories to seminarians."54
Linkup's leaders emphasized that the revictimization of silencing drove many survivors to seek help from journalists and lawyers. Economus [End Page 94] lamented that lawsuits put the Church "on the defensive," creating a climate where bishops mistakenly viewed victims "as the enemy."55 Responding to public skepticism about why so many survivors were willing to share publicly the intimate details of their abuse, Economus wrote, "To blame the media for creating this panic is to ignore the fact that victims went to the Church first. The Church turned a deaf ear and the media listened."56 Likewise, Economus saw lawyers as a last resort, "It's fair to say that most survivors would never have filed suit against the Church had the bishops listened with respect and treated them with compassion, and not like the enemy."57
Linkup urged victims to reconsider filing lawsuits, and in 1995 the organization formed a mediation team to help survivors avoid revictimization at the hands of Church attorneys. The board of directors advocated mediation because, they explained, "Linkup has heard from so many survivors who have been damaged beyond repair during litigation."58 Gaboury, despite having received a much higher settlement than most victims, reflected at length on the mismatch between the legal process and the steps survivors needed to recover from soul murder. "We now know that the justice of prosecution, the satisfaction of monetary settlements as admissions of guilt," Gaboury wrote, "will never fill the emptiness, will never magically transform us into individuals who are free to hope, love, and feel complete – that, my friends, is an interior journey."59 Because they interpreted their interactions with the Church and its attorneys through a theology of voice, survivors interpreted hardball legal tactics, particularly victim intimidation, character defamation, and nondisclosure agreements, as ecclesiastical efforts to silence victims.
Linkup recognized that the silence of shame reverberated outwards, destroying relationships and isolating victims. Members wrote frequently that fear and guilt caused them to push away family and friends. Shame also threatened to create a silent void between children and God. Eventually, some survivors decided that "praying angry" was the only way to resume conversations with the divine.60 "Your personal faith has been traumatized, poisoned, and perhaps even killed by your abuse," Ron Miller [End Page 95]
Linkup's second rendering of the "three wise priests" motif. Appearing frequently, with minor variations in color and captioning, in the organization's marketing and communications from 1996–2002, beginning with The Missing Link 4, no. 3 (Fall 1996).
preached at a healing conference, "Healing requires coming to terms with your anger at God."61
Linkup members lamented the silence of bystanders. Survivors knew firsthand that some priests, nuns, and staff had willfully "turned a blind eye" and "a deaf ear" when they became aware of abuse. The culture of silence was so devastating to survivors that Linkup developed a series of illustrations depicting priests in the classical motif of three wise monkeys. Sometimes captioned "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil," variations appeared almost constantly in The Missing Link, eventually being incorporated into Linkup's official logo and emblazoned on the banners, t-shirts, and buttons that survivors distributed at public events.
Throughout the 1990s, survivors constantly criticized Church officials' "deaf ear" and called on priests to listen to victims who newly stepped forward. Economus was particularly inflamed by the number of bishops who not only ignored survivors but also attempted to re-silence them:
When victims speak with Church officials, they are often met with an unsympathetic ear, lack of compassion, or the use of archaic buzz-words that are highly offensive. To tell a victim of clergy abuse to 'forgive and [End Page 96] forget,' 'pray about it,' 'let it go,' or 'keep it between us,' shows a lack of regard for the victim and his or her pain. Victims do not want to hear such unseemly advice, nor do they want to remain silent! Silence has allowed the sexual abuse of children and cover-up to go on unchecked for years.62
Such responses reflect the broader institutional culture of secrecy, which led many American bishops to shuffle priests and shield personnel records at children's expense.
Frustrated by bishops' unwillingness to disclose the names of accused priests, early survivors created and disseminated their own lists. In the 1990s, victims throughout the nation began faxing newspaper clippings about clergy abuse. These crowd-sourced media reports became a new section of The Missing Link called "Black Collar Crimes," which summarized new allegations and typically ran from ten to twelve pages per issue. By 1997, Linkup members had compiled a list of over 700 accused priests and printed their names on a twenty-foot banner titled "Fallen Catholic Clergy."63 Other survivor organizations subsequently expanded and normalized publicizing information about accused priests. Public databases have become a crucial form of reparations to survivors and a means to restore trust in victims' claims. In the absence of published lists, victims bear the burden of doubt from fellow Catholics. Through their collective voices, victims thus insisted on telling not only their individual truth, but the whole truth. "The bishops aren't sure they can trust us," survivor-advocate Dee Miller wrote in 1995, "but they can—they can always trust us to tell their secrets."64
Seeking Care from Priests Who Listen
Priests in the survivor movement embodied a paradox both natural and unfathomable. After their soul murder, many survivors sought spiritual repair. But instead of turning to Protestant congregations, they returned to the prayers and rituals of their Catholic youth. Even more remarkable, Linkup's survivors continued to long for pastoral care from collared, male priests. Many victims idolized Father Economus and other Linkup priests, especially Father Gary Hayes and Father Jay Nelson.65 Yet, like other survivors, [End Page 97] these priests also longed for their own pastoral care. Economus, for example, had a recurring dream where Pope John Paul II apologized and embraced him in a compassionate hug.66 Non-victimized priests involved in Linkup included Cardinal Joseph Bernardin and Father Andrew Greeley. Bernardin "was the only [bishop] who believed in this movement," Economus eulogized.67 Acknowledgement and listening were the lenses through which Linkup judged whether Church officials were authentic advocates or only feigning concern for survivors.
By focusing on survivors' perspectives, historians can glimpse an alternate configuration of the current clergy abuse crisis, one in which survivors and bishops might have worked together on healing and spiritual repair. In the 1990s, Linkup briefly forged a working alliance with the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB). Consequently, when Linkup held its second healing conference at St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, during 1994, survivors extolled the healing they felt from being heard and believed by priests. "Our hosts at St. John's demonstrated enormous courage and humility in listening to survivors," wrote Dee Miller, "and it was something for which many of us had been crying for years."68 "Thanks are due especially to Bishop Jerome Hanus of St. Cloud," Economus echoed, "for if the Church can live up to the promises he made—to listen to survivors and share their experiences with other bishops—he will certainly have earned the standing ovation he received."69 The following year, five members of the NCCB Ad Hoc Committee on Clergy Sexual Abuse attended Linkup's healing conference. For their part, survivors were deeply engaged in the committee's work, reprinting their unredacted recommendations in The Missing Link and answering questions as panelists for the committee.70
Unfortunately, this goodwill gradually deteriorated in the late-1990s, due partly to the feedback loop generated by survivors' own voices. As Linkup grew, it encouraged more survivors to come forward publicly, which increased media coverage and litigation. In 1995, thirty-five dioceses "spon [End Page 98]
Linkup president, Father Tom Economus, "Welcome Address" to the Eighth Linkup National Healing Conference: Honoring Our Losses, September 15–17, 2000, in Chicago, Illinois (from The Missing Link 9, no. 2 [Spring 2002]).
sored" victims, paying their expenses to attend Linkup events.71 In 1999, however, only three dioceses remained conference sponsors.72 By 2002, Linkup survivors seemed to trust only the handful of clergy (and former clergy) willing to speak out publicly against the culture of silence, especially Father Tom Doyle, O.P., and A.W. Richard Sipe, two highly-revered whistleblowers. Doyle was beloved for his 1985 warning to the NCCB about the widespread reality of clergy abuse.73 A psychologist and former Benedictine monk, Sipe helped shape both how Linkup members understood the causes of their childhood abuse, and especially their belief that survivors held prophetic powers that could repair the broader social fabric of Catholic life.74 Within Doyle and Sipe's framework, Linkup and its members began to see their abuse less as a disease within the Church than a symptom of broader illness [End Page 99] whistleblowers called "clericalism." Moreover, everyday parishioners began to demonstrate greater compassion for survivors, leading to new dialogue about how the clergy sexual abuse cover-up hurt Catholics.
As diocesan leaders severed ties to Linkup, survivors built new alliances with lay reform groups, including Call to Action and Women Church. These alliances transformed survivors' understanding of voice's sacrality, shifting emphasis towards the prophetic potential of the survivor movement. "Someone must speak out and call for ecclesiastical accountability like an Old Testament prophet," Nelson preached, "and who can do this better than survivors?"75 In the final column written before his death, Economus likewise called on survivors to see that their revictimization made them even more compelling truth-tellers. "We had returned to the Church for guidance, healing, spirituality, and compassion," he wrote, "but the Church ignored our cries in the wind."76 At his death, Economus was eulogized as "a prophet" whose leadership had uplifted "countless survivors who would not have found the courage to speak."77
Exploring Voice's Limits through Artwork
In the wake of their revictimization, survivors turned to one another for healing and justice. After the success of Miller's 1992 "Breaking the Silence" conference, Linkup organized ten additional national healing conferences. Host cities included Chicago; Collegeville, Minnesota; Toronto, Canada; Dallas; Louisville; and Washington, D.C. Conference themes reflected survivors' perceived "evolution" of their early movement, including "Healing Toward Prevention" (1994), "From Surviving to Thriving" (1996), "Calling the Church to Account" (1997), "The Spiritual Journey Continues" (1999), and "A Global Crisis" (2001). Although the theology of voice pervaded Linkup's national healing conferences, these annual gatherings were also a communal space for victims to explore their questions and doubts about the limits of voice.
Linkup's healing conferences included daily workshops, support groups, lectures, art exhibits, and live performances. The most frequent lecture topics were women's spirituality, art therapy, legal developments, theology, and church history. Sessions were also scheduled for survivors to network with [End Page 100] regional support groups, speak with Catholic clergy and bishops, meet with therapists, and seek advice from victims' attorneys. Official conference speakers promoted "voice" as the gateway to justice and healing, and through creative activities—including survivor quilts, healing altars, sculpture, poetry, music, and theater—Linkup members moved toward a more capacious understanding of "voice" and its limits.
Art therapy helped survivors reconcile the pain of their abuse with their ongoing desires to regain a sense of church and repair their relationship with God. At the 1995 conference, "Healing Towards Prevention," for example, survivor Marilyn Wells read "Join Your Voice with Mine," a poem that envisioned a world where survivors' voices assured a future in which all children will be safe:
Start to tell your story and the pain you feel inside.With each new revelation, you'll begin to heal.So when you join your voice with mine, we will be heard for miles.With our strength together, we'll prevent the abuse of a small child.And if we can spare just one child's life from this same pain,The effort now of speaking will not have been in vain.78
Although Wells's poem shone with optimism, the artwork survivors created at the healing conferences was often shot through with suffering and doubt. Attendees created their own artwork on cloth panels that were quilted into a large tapestry and displayed at each conference.79 Many survivors painted scenes depicting the chaotic aftermath of their soul murder through the symbols of broken cathedrals, devilish priests, weaponed crucifixes, and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Several panels depicted the Blessed Mother weeping blood while embracing a group of children. The most popular motif showed priests, enlarged to Godzilla-like proportions, tearing open cathedral walls and wreaking deathly havoc on the parishioners inside. Other survivors painted words instead of images, such as two squares on one quilt that bore the singular question: "WHY?"80
Artwork also helped survivors reflect on the limits of voice. Some composed and performed songs. At the 1994 conference at St. John's Abbey, [End Page 101]
Survivor Quilt, ca. 1996, artist unknown (Courtesy of Rick Springer/"The Linkup: Slideshow," 11th National Healing Conference, Louisville, Kentucky, February 21–23, 2003).
Bette Rod played selections on her guitar from a forthcoming album she had written about surviving clergy abuse. She asked attendees to help write the final songs "No Longer a Victim" and "Broken Child."81 The former echoes the optimism of Wells's poem, but "Broken Child" is a haunting lullaby in which the adult victim returns to her own assault and cradles her own tender body, offering companionship and empathy but, ultimately, unable to protect her soul from the sexual abuse and its lifelong aftermath. Instead, the adult survivor rocks her childhood self, singing:
I will stay for the moment, here beside you,I will look at your misery and try to touch you. I won't tell you it will be better soon, there are no words I know how to say. What happened child to make you like this, [End Page 102] who stole the words from your mouth?Who made you stay with your eyes opened wide, while they killed the pretty child inside? I will lie here beside your broken body, try to protect what is left. No more performances, no happy smiles, no assurances that I can help. I will lie down beside you, snuggle you in, wrap soft blankets all around. But I have no words to put to the lullabies, that I hum now so softly for you.82
These examples suggest that the healing conferences were both generative and mournful. Linkup survivors brought their hopes to each conference and embraced creative approaches to healing and spirituality, but the conferences seemed to spark as many questions as answers, leaving survivors with the sense that healing is a lifelong "journey" where the final destination of "spiritual wholeness" is forever just beyond reach.83
The Endurance of Voice
In the months surrounding Economus's death, Linkup and SNAP worked with The Boston Globe's "Spotlight" team to bring unprecedented international attention to clergy sexual abuse's prevalence. The Globe's investigative reporting laid bare a systemic pattern of denial, cover-up, and revictimization within the Archdiocese of Boston. During the following decade, that pattern was found to have played out, with astonishing consistency, in dioceses across the United States, and survivors' stories began to be heard with a frequency Miller and Steffel never imagined.84 For Linkup as an organization, however, the timing of the Boston revelations was tragic. Father Economus died of cancer in March with no clear successor.85 Lacking a national spokesperson, Linkup survivors were dismayed by public discourse's quick shift in the wake of Boston, moving decisively away from [End Page 103] Linkup's spiritual healing message and toward calls for legislative and judicial accountability. While new survivor groups focused on litigation and legislative reform, Linkup tried in vain to garner support for an alternative approach: a national survivor retreat center. Knowing that the Church created more than two dozen "treatment centers" to diagnose and conceal abusive clergy, Linkup asked parishes and dioceses to help create a single center for victims' refuge and treatment. They relocated Linkup's headquarters to a rural location near Louisville, Kentucky, and "The Farm," as the center was called, offered year-round intensive spiritual guidance formerly available only during the annual healing conferences. Social workers Sue Archibald and Nancy Mayer ran Linkup until 2005, when The Farm was renamed "The Linkup Healing Alliance." After unsuccessfully requesting financial support from the NCCB, Linkup's last iteration collapsed in 2007. The organization survived only in Chicago, where Economus's former lieutenants, Springer and Sitterding, continued to run support groups until Springer's death in 2014.
Although Linkup no longer exists, survivors now widely accept VOCAL's theology of voice. Subsequent survivor organizations continue to foreground voice by emphasizing public disclosures of abuse allegations and urging ecclesiastical accountability. Barbara Blaine's group, SNAP, retained VOCAL's emphasis on networking survivors, but it diverged sharply from Linkup by embracing litigation and judicial reform.86 Speak Truth To Power (STTOP), led by Ruth Moore, bears witness to survivors' revictimization and silencing.87 Bishop Accountability, run by Anne Barret-Doyle and Terry McKiernan, has continued and expanded Linkup's longstanding mission of publicly naming credibly-accused priests.88 Healing Voices, founded by Mary Liz Austin in 2004, shares survivors' stories and provides counseling for female victims. Most prominently, Voice of the Faithful (VOTF)—a Bostonbased group that forged a national coalition of survivors, advocates, and laypersons—retained VOCAL's understanding of voice as divine agency, silence as sinful, and survivors as prophetic guides for institutional reforms. VOTF's meteoric rise was based in Linkup's model of "listening sessions," where non-abused Catholics could hear survivor testimonies and share their own concerns about clergy abuse.89 VOTF's emphases on speaking with and [End Page 104] listening to survivors descended directly from Linkup's theology of voice, and its founders understood themselves as faithful Catholics inspired by victims to reform the structures that enabled abuse. In sum, Linkup's theology of voice laid the moral and theological foundations for discursive interpretations of the clergy sexual abuse crisis, and "voice" now undergirds a much broader U.S. Catholic reassessment of lay empowerment and ecclesiastical accountability. [End Page 105]
Brian J. Clites is senior instructor of religious studies and associate director of the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio.
Footnotes
* Research on sexual abuse requires social and intellectual support. I wish to thank Timothy Beal, Matthew Cressler, Christopher Cantwell, and Justine Howe for their insights and camaraderie. I would also like to thank the journal's anonymous reviewers, whose questions and critiques improved my analysis.
1. Jeanne Miller, "Setting a Vision," concluding address at the first annual Linkup National Healing Conference, "Breaking the Silence," October 18, 1992, Arlington Heights, Illinois. Transcribed by the author from audio cassette recordings.
2. Linkup formally changed names several times. Until 1993, they retained their full title ("Victims of Clergy Abuse Linkup") but moved away from VOCAL after learning that the acronym was also being used by incest nonprofits. In 1995, they switched from "Victims" to "Survivors of Clergy Abuse Linkup." In 2004, when a core group tried to resurrect the organization, it was briefly rebranded as "Linkup: A Healing Alliance." In this article, VOCAL and Linkup are employed interchangeably, while favoring the latter because members of today's Catholic survivor organizations remember it as "Linkup."
3. The Linkup community understood itself as composed of both victims and survivors, and The Missing Link frequently used the phrases "victims and survivors" and "victims/survivors" to express that inclusivity. Throughout this article, Linkup's emic distinction uses "victim" to refer to those who have not yet spoken aloud, and "survivors" for those who have begun to find healing and liberation through the theology of voice. Occasionally, however, victim and survivor are used interchangeably to avoid repetition.
4. Tom Economus, "Growing Pains: Reclaiming the Survivor Movement," The Missing Link 3, no. 2 (Summer 1995), 1.
5. Miller and Economus frequently used "People of God" to refer to (and reassert survivors' belonging within) the broader body of U.S. Catholic laypersons.
6. Donald Cozzens, Sacred Silence: Denial and Crisis in the Church (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2002).
7. Mark D. Jordan, The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000); Mark D. Jordan, Telling Truths in Church: Scandal, Flesh, and Christian Speech (Boston: Beacon Press, 2003).
8. This is argued in greater depth in Brian Clites, "Our Accountability to Survivors," American Catholic Studies 130, no. 2 (Summer 2019), 4–7.
9. My research on VOCAL/Linkup began during doctoral fieldwork among Chicagoarea survivors, conducted from 2011–2015, which included life-story interviews with many of Linkup's early officers, including Jeanne Miller, Marilyn Steffel, Rick Springer, Bobbie Sitterding, and Dee Miller. These survivors carefully preserved issues of The Missing Link, enabling the assembly of a nearly complete archive of the forty-five issues published between 1992 and 2007.
10. This approach also recognizes that, historically, scholars' insistence on our interpretive superiority caused drastic harm, most infamously by supporting the enslavement and genocide of indigenous populations. This legacy has been well documented by a number of historians of religion, including Jonathan Z. Smith, Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982); and Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).
11. Laura McTighe, "Theory on the Ground: Ethnography, Religio-Racial Study, and the Spiritual Work of Building Otherwise," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 88, no. 2 (June 2020), 413. Other scholars made similar calls for uplifting field subjects as conversation partners rather than data; see, for example, Kristy Nabhan-Warren, "Embodied Research and Writing: A Case for Phenomenologically Oriented Religious Studies Ethnographies," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 79, no. 2 (June 2011), 378–407.
12. Veena Das, Arthur Kleinman, and Margaret Lock, Remaking a World: Violence, Social Suffering, and Recovery (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); Veena Das, Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).
13. Fiona C. Ross, "Speech and Silence: Women's Testimony in the Public Hearings of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission," in Das and Kleinman, Remaking a World, 253.
14. The concept of "soul murder" dates back to at least the nineteenth century but gained prominence when Sigmund Freud appropriated it from Daniel Paul Schreber, a Saxon judge whose 1903 memoirs provided Freud with a hallmark case study of paranoia, which Freud used to support his theory that child abuse was the root of mental illness. Throughout the twentieth century, philosophers and theorists—most notably Jacques Lacan, Gilles Deleuze, and Félix Guattari—argued that Freud seriously misread Schreber's case. Shengold chose to essentially retain Freud's usage of the term in spite of these objections. See Schreber, Memoires of My Nervous Illness [1903], trans. by Ida Macalpine and Richard Hunter (New York: New York Review Books, 2000); Freud, "Psycho-Analytic Notes on an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia" [1911], in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 12 (London: Hogarth Press, 1958), 3–84; Lacan, Écrtis: The First Complete Edition in English, trans. by Bruce Fink (New York: W.W. Norton, 2002); Deleuze and Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. by Robert Hurley, et al. (New York: Penguin Classics, 2009 [1972]); Shengold, "An Attempt at Soul Murder: Rudyard Kipling's Early Life and Work," The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 30, no. 1 (1975), 683–724; Shengold, Soul Murder: The Effects of Childhood Abuse and Deprivation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989); Shengold, Soul Murder Revisited (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999); Alexander von der Haven, "Beyond the Modern Self: Madness and Divine Communion in Fin-de-siècle Germany," in Religion and Madness Around 1900: Between Pathology and Self-Empowerment, ed. by Lutz Greisiger, et al. (Baden, Germany: Ergon Verlag, 2017), 69–100.
15. Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea, Perversion of Power: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2007), 17–38.
16. For survivors' multivalent understandings of "soul murder," see Clites, "Soul Murder: Sketches of Survivor Imaginaries," Exchange: Journal of Contemporary Christianities in Context 48, no. 3 (Winter 2019), 268–279.
17. Nancy Whittier, The Politics of Child Sexual Abuse: Emotion, Social Movements, and the State (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 208–211.
18. Cf. Tricia C. Bruce, Faithful Revolution: How Voice of the Faithful is Changing the Church (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 172–173.
19. Although Miller's story has not received much scholarly attention, her experiences were well documented by several prominent journalists. See Jason Berry, Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children (New York: Doubleday, 1992); Frank Bruni and Elinor Burkett, A Gospel of Shame: Children, Sexual Abuse, and the Catholic Church (New York: Harper Collins, 1993).
20. Except where otherwise noted, the biographical information in this section comes from the author's interviews with Jeanne Miller, August 18–20, 2014.
21. These groups were at the forefront of the U.S. Catholic feminist movement. For the history of CCW, see Mary J. Henold, Catholic and Feminist: The Surprising History of the American Catholic Feminist Movement (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 180–193.
22. Feminist theology permeated Mundelein College. See Tim Lacy, "Understanding 'Strategies for Learning:' Pedagogy, Feminism, and Academic Culture at Mundelein College, 1957–1991," American Catholic Studies 116, no. 2 (Summer 1995), 39–66.
23. Miller, interview with the author, August 19, 2014.
24. Miller later self-published her M.A. thesis as "Pedophilia in the Priesthood: A Church in Crisis—a treatise offered to VOCAL (Victims of Clergy Abuse Linkup) as a Manifesto for its organizational purposes," October 1, 1991, 92 pages, which is the version quoted here. The works Miller most frequently cited by these authors were: Gutierrez, A Theology of the Oppressed (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1973); Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Herder & Herder, 1970); Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1979); Pope John Paul II, "The Ethics of the AIDS Crisis," The Pope Speaks 36, no. 1 (1990); Pope John Paul II, "Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations," reprinted in The National Catholic Reporter, October 12, 1990; Pope John Paul II, "Aquinas: Defender of Human Dignity," The Pope Speaks 36, no. 2 (1990).
25. Miller, "Pedophilia in the Priesthood," 8.
26. Miller, "Pedophilia in the Priesthood," 2.
27. Miller, "Pedophilia in the Priesthood," 9–11. Emphasis in original.
28. Miller, "Pedophilia in the Priesthood," 59.
29. Miller, "Pedophilia in the Priesthood," 50.
30. Whittier, The Politics of Child Sexual Abuse, 175–181.
31. Nancy A. Naples, "Deconstructing and Locating Survivor Discourse: Dynamics of Narrative, Empowerment, and Resistance for Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28, no. 4 (2003), 1151–1185.
32. Carol E. Barringer, "The Survivor's Voice: Breaking the Incest Taboo," NWSA Journal 4, no. 1 (Spring 1992), 17.
33. Fearing the archdiocese would sue her for violating their nondisclosure agreement, Miller used her grandmother's maiden name to create the pseudonym Hilary Stiles. Hilary Stiles [Jeanne Miller], Assault on Innocence (Albuquerque, NM: B&K Publishers, 1987).
34. For the context of Miller's talk show appearances, see Philip Jenkins, Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 68; and Helena Flam, "Sexual Abuse of Children by the Catholic Priests in the U.S.," Journal of Political Power 8, no. 3 (September 2015), 393.
35. On Economus's life and ministry, see Frontline, "John Paul II, the Millennial Pope: Interview with Tom Economus" (Boston: WGBH Boston PBS, 1995); and Zak Mucha, "The Grand Inquisitor," The Chicago Reader, November 4, 1999.
36. I first heard about the outsized contributions of these members in interviews and conversations with Chicago-area survivors. The Missing Link also describes the labors, officer roles, board positions, and annual awards of these volunteers.
37. For more detail on the network of victims who Fitzpatrick brought together, see Fox Butterfield, "Silent Decades, Dozens Accuse a Priest," New York Times, June 9, 1982.
38. Economus, "HBO—Church Leaders," The Missing Link 4, no. 2 (Spring 1996), 2.
39. Miller, "Message from the President," The Missing Link 2, no. 1 (Spring 1994), 1.
40. Nelson, "The Survivor Movement at a Crossroads," The Missing Link 7, no. 2 (Spring 1999), 1.
41. Economus, "Linkup Gains Momentum," The Missing Link 2, no. 2 (Fall 1994), 1.
42. Dee Miller, "Reconnections," The Missing Link 2, no. 2 (Fall 1994), 3.
43. Dennis Gaboury, "Growth and Choice," The Missing Link 3, no. 1 (Winter 1995), 4.
44. Gaboury, "Growth and Choice," 4.
45. Economus, "Going Public," The Missing Link 1, no. 3 (July 1993), 12.
46. Nelson, "The Survivors' Movement at a Crossroads," 1.
47. Gaboury, "Growth and Choice," 4.
48. Economus, "Repressed Memory?," The Missing Link 3, no. 1 (Winter 1995), 1.
49. It is beyond this article's scope to detail the tactics through which Church officials attempted to silence victims. For analyses of the damage caused by such tactics, see Richard Sipe, Thomas Doyle, and Patrick Wall, Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church's 2,000-Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse (New York: Volt, 2006); Frawley-O'Dea, Perversion of Power.
50. Miller, "Welcome Address: Breaking the Silence," delivered October 16, 1992, at the VOCAL National Healing Conference, transcribed by the author from audio recordings.
51. Economus, "Growing Pains: Reclaiming the Survivors' Movement," 1.
52. Gary Hayes, "To the Bishops," The Missing Link 9, no. 2 (Spring 2002), 2–3.
53. Hayes, "To the Bishops," 2–3.
54. Hayes, "To the Bishops," 2–3.
55. Economus, "Buzz Words," The Missing Link 6, no. 2 (Spring 1998), 1.
56. Economus, "HBO—Church Leaders," 2.
57. Economus, "Repressed Memory?," 1.
58. "Linkup Establishes a Mediation Team," The Missing Link 3, no. 3 (Fall 1995), 2.
59. Gaboury, "Growth and Choice," 4.
60. Questions around prayer and healing continued to trouble Linkup survivors, even beyond the organization's formal disbanding in 2007. See Robert Orsi, "Praying Angry," SSRC Forums, Reverberations: New Directions in the Study of Prayer, August 27, 2014, http://forums.ssrc.org/ndsp/2013/08/27/praying-angry/.
61. Ron Miller, "Spiritual Questions from the Conference," The Missing Link 3, no. 1 (Winter 1995), 4.
62. Economus, "Buzz Words," 1.
63. "Conference Program," Linkup's 5th National Healing Conference: Calling the Church to Account (November 1997), 5.
64. Dee Miller, "Reconnections," The Missing Link 3, no. 1 (Spring 1995), 4.
65. As mentioned earlier, Hayes was ordained in the Roman Catholic rite. Economus and Nelson were ordained in the Holy Independent Catholic Church. Though aware of this distinction, survivors nevertheless understood Economus and Nelson as fully Catholic. For an astute analysis of the ideological norms at stake in how we differentiate (and usually ignore) non-Roman Catholic Catholics, see Julie Byrne, The Other Catholics: Remaking America's Largest Religion (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016).
66. Economus, "The Pope's Embargo Against Victims," The Missing Link 6, no. 1 (Winter 1998), 2.
67. There were also instances when Linkup survivors and Bernardin openly feuded. For more on Linkup members' complex relationships with Bernardin, see Clites, "Breaking the Silence: The Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivor Movement in Chicago (Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University, 2015), 224–233.
68. Dee Miller, "Reconnections," The Missing Link 2, no. 2 (Fall 1994), 3.
69. Economus, "Linkup Gains Momentum," 1.
70. "Bishops Find Loopholes," The Missing Link 4, no. 1 (Winter 1996), 2.
71. "4th National Healing Conference," The Missing Link 4, no. 3 (Fall 1996), 4.
72. Nelson, "The Survivors' Movement at a Crossroads," 1.
73. Thomas Doyle and Ray Mouton, "The Problem of Sexual Molestation by Roman Catholic Clergy: Meeting the Problem in a Comprehensive and Responsible Manner," June 9, 1985, https://www.bishop-accountability.org/reports/1985_06_09_Doyle_Manual/.
74. See Sipe, A Secret World (New York: Bruner-Routledge, 1990); Sipe, Sex, Priests, and Power (New York: Bruner/Mazel, 1995).
75. Nelson, "The Survivors' Movement at a Crossroads," 2.
76. Economus, "The Linkup: A Decade of Fighting Denial," The Missing Link 9, no. 1 (Winter 2001), 2.
77. Hayes, "The Linkup Survives," The Missing Link 10, no. 1 (Spring 2002), 1–2. Cf. Steffel, "Eulogy for Tom Economus," reprinted in The Missing Link 10, no. 1 (Spring 2002), 11.
78. Marilyn Wells, "Join Your Voice with Mine," The Missing Link 2, no. 1 (Spring 1994), 19.
79. A mainstay of the early feminist movement, these survivor quilts were a tangible example of feminism's broad influence on Linkup members. In interviews, several survivors also said that Linkup's conference quilts were inspired by The NAMES Project "AIDS Memorial Quilt" displayed on the National Mall in 1985.
80. "The Linkup: Slideshow, 11th National Healing Conference, Louisville, KY, February 21–23, 2003," 273 photographic slides. Digital copy provided to the author by Linkup officer Rick Springer, February 7, 2012.
81. Rick Springer, interview with the author, February 7, 2012; and Dee Miller, correspondence with the author, August 9, 2020.
82. Lyrics from Bette Rod, "Broken Child," Pieces (CD Baby, 1997), track 16. The original album artwork for Pieces was a survivor quilt; Dee Miller explained to me that each song represented a "piece" of the tapestry they wove together at the conference. Pieces can be streamed through several online streaming platforms.
83. The terms "journey" and "healing towards wholeness" reappear in workshop titles throughout the conference programs.
84. Steffel, "Eulogy for Tom Economus."
85. On the repercussions of Economus's death, see Elaine Woo, "Tom Economus, 46, Critic of the Church," Los Angeles Times, March 26, 2002; Brooks Egerton, "The Rev. Tom Economus—Champion of Clergy Abuse Victims," The Dallas Morning News, March 25, 2002; Gary Hayes, "The Linkup Survives," The Missing Link 10, no. 1 (Spring 2002), 1–2.
86. For a narrative account of SNAP's emergence, see Michael D'Antonio, Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2014).
87. Ruth Moore, Survivors' Lullaby: Giving Witness from Boston to the Clergy Sex Abuse Crimes (Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2006).
88. Database of Publicly Accused Roman Catholic Priests, Nuns, Brothers, Deacons, and Seminarians, https://www.bishop-accountability.org/accused/.
89. On VOTF's founding vision, see James Muller and Charles Kinney, Keep the Faith, Change the Church (Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2004). For histories of VOTF, see Bruce, Faithful Revolution, and William D'Antonio and Anthony Pogorelc, eds., Voices of the Faithful: Loyal Catholics Striving for Change (New York: Crossroad, 2007).
